Dr. No: 14 Things You Don't Need to Know

Hello and welcome to Movies... A Million Movies. Today I'm going to be talking about the first and one of the best James Bond movies, Dr. No. It's the movie that drew the blueprint for all the Bond films to follow and had a huge impact on everything from what we see on television to what women wear to the beach. So grab a martini and sit back as I walk you through some useless facts you don't need to know about the 1962 classic, Dr. No. "Unfortunately I misjudged you. You are just a stupid policeman, whose time has run out." Dr. No was not the obvious choice for the first of the infamous to be made into a feature film. in fact dr. Noah was the sixth title in the series and three later novels were already published before production began on dr. no the movies producers Harry Saltzman and cubby broccoli originally wanted to make Thunderball first but that title was locked up in legal challenges so what made doctor no moved to the front of the line ahead of the seven other possible stories the answer is simple literally the plot wasn't very complicated most of it could be shot in a single location Jamaica in this case and dr. nose lair was the only complicated set they needed to build all together these factors added up to a relatively simple production which would be the safest bet those two year executives were not a hundred percent sold that a James Bond movie would bring anyone into the theaters of course one of the biggest decisions the production team had to make once the title was selected was who would play the part of James Bond and to build buzz the producers initially launched a fine James Bond contest in England the winner was Peter Anthony who while he had the look to play Bond was not an actor Trevor Howard and Michael Redgrave were also up for the park the cubby broccoli was positive that Sean Connery was the man to play the role broccoli sent Connery's screen tests United Artists for approval and got a telegram back telling him no keep trying as the start date for the production got closer and closer broccoli used his position and insisted on casting Connery in the role the studio execs weren't the only ones who didn't want to see Sean Connery play bon-bons creator Ian Fleming didn't like him for the part either strikes against Conor Ian Fleming's eyes where that Connery was Scottish bond is English Connery came from a working-class background while bond his upper class and Connery was rugged and a little rough bond was refined and educated however after seeing the finished film Fleming changed his mind and thought Connery was actually a great bond in fact in on Her Majesty's Secret Service Fleming gave on a Scottish ancestry and while Sean Connery may have had the look and the style to play Bond he didn't share bonds fearlessness Connery it turns out is deathly afraid of spiders so to get the shot of bond with a tranche allah crawling on him the crew placed a sheet of glass between the spider and Connery for the close-ups stuntman Bob Simmons took over for Connery it turns out that Simmons was also afraid of spiders he called the stunt the scariest one he ever performed bonus fun fact the tarantulas name was rosey one of the most iconic shots found in all James Bond movies is the sequence at the beginning of each movie where the camera is looking down a gun barrel as Bond walks by before the gun can fire at him though bond pivots and shoots the assassin only that's not Sean Connery firing at the assassin the man we see there is once again stuntman Bob Simmons Simmons who ended up being a stuntman or a stunt coordinator on all but two of the Bond films from dr. no in 1962 through a view to the kill in 1985 and his version of the gun barrel shot appear in From Russia With Love and Goldfinger it wasn't until the fourth film Thunderball that Sean Connery took over and appeared in the sequence another iconic element from the Bond movies is of course the theme song while John Berry often gets credit for the song thanks to his amazing arrangement the song was actually written by songwriter Monty Norman Norman Bates the theme on the song he'd written called good sign bad sign for never produced musical the story for the musical came from VS Naipaul x' novel a house for mr. Biswas and since the story focused on indian characters the song was written replayed on the sitar ie was born with this unlucky sneeze and what this worthless I came into the world the wrong way around pundits all agree that I am the reason why my father fell into the village pond and drowned now when John Berry orchestrated the song he converted the sitar part into the now famous electric guitar melody it's not a real Bond film without a couple of Bond girls and doctor no set a standard for that as well starting with unis gayson as Sylvia Trench originally that part was supposed to be played by Lois Maxwell but Maxwell didn't feel comfortable in the park especially when she found out that she'd be required to appear in one scene wearing nothing but one of bonds shirts instead Maxwell took the role of Miss Moneypenny apart she continued to play in the next fourteen Bond movies Eunice Gates's part is Sylvia Trench was also supposed to be a repeating role for her at least the next five movies and while she did appear in From Russia With Love unfortunately her character was dropped from the other films the other Bond girl and doctor no is the character honey Rider played by Ursula Andress the producers originally considered julie christie for the part but didn't feel she had the sex appeal they wanted for this role and two weeks before production was to begin the part was still unfilled that was until John Derek sent the producers a photo of his wife Ursula Andress the producers were so impressed with her look that they offered Andrus who was an unknown actress at the time the part without even meeting her the gamble paid off in Ursula Andress became an international star following her appearance in dr. no a big part of her impact was her memorable first appearance on screen as she walked out of the surf with the conch shells she'd collected at the time the keys were still somewhat new and were seen as a novelty but thanks to her appearance in the custom-made one she wore bikini sales skyrocketed and became the new standard for women's beach wear in the long line of Bond villains we've seen some unforgettable characters like Horak Goldfinger Ernst Stavro Blofeld Fiona Volpe and Rosa Klebb dr. no easily ranks in the top 10 of my favorite Bond villains frankly because he was the first to bring so many of the classic Bond villain elements to the screen he was an elitist genius who lives in a secret lair he's disfigurement robotic hands and an army of devoted henchmen and he was played wonderfully by Josef Weissman but Josef Weitzman was not everyone's first choice for the part Ian Fleming wanted his cut and Christopher Lee to play the part he also thought Noel Coward could do the role but coward refused in part because he'd have to wear those robotic hands a third candidate Max von Sydow turned down the part as well interestingly both Christopher Lee and Max von Sydow would eventually play Bond villains Lee as Francisco Scaramanga in the man with the Golden Gun and von Sydow as Blofeld and never say never again as for Noel Coward he never appeared in a Bond film as I mentioned duck know had a fantastic secret lair it's even more fantastic when you realized that production designer of Ken Adam built everything in the movie for less than 15,000 pounds one feature Adam wanted to include was a giant aquarium he couldn't afford to build a real one so we used a rear projection screen that would show stock footage of fish swimming by unfortunately the only stock footage the crew could afford was a goldfish sized fish so they enlarged the projection and added a line about the aquarium magnifying the image of the fish to the script the glass is convex 10 inches thick which accounts for the magnifying effect Minda was pretending they're whales just like you on this island dr. Moreau and passed off small Guppies as giant fish in fact Ken Adam set was so impressive as Stanley Kubrick hired him the following year to be the production designer on dr. Strangelove where he created an equally impressive set one more feature of the set that showed Ken Adams his creativity is this sequence where bond stops to admire a painting in dr. nose lair Adam felt that dr. nose should have some style and taste so he mixed in antiques with the contemporary pieces he decided to include this painting which is Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington in Dodge nose collection the real portrait have been stolen from the National Gallery in London the year before so it's no surprise that a stolen piece of classic art would catch bonds eye to make the painting Adams got a slide of the original from the National Gallery and painted a copy over the weekend before the scene was filmed like the real Kuya Adam says fake Goya was also stolen after filming was completed and one final fact to highlight about dr. know is how timely it was just a few days after the premiere in England the Cuban Missile Crisis happened now the similarities between the fictional story and dr. know and the real story happening on the news brought a lot of attention to the film and built a lot of buzz for the movie even so there was concern about how the film would do in the United States United Artists did a test run at a drive-in theater in Oklahoma audiences loved it and the film ultimately made nearly 60 million dollars on a production budget of just 1.1 million and there you have it my list of useless facts about dr. know that you can use to impress or annoy your friends with and if you like my videos I hope you'll take a second to subscribe to my channel if you do you'll get a notification whenever I post a new video and be sure to come back next Monday morning when I'll have another episode to share with you until then as always thank you for watching a million movies and I hope to see you again soon

Channel: A Million Movies

Views: 196,176

Rating: 4.9026279 out of 5

Keywords: movies, Dr. No, James Bond, Trivia, Sean Connery, 007

Id: ThEJnjQp07s

Length: 10min 50sec (650 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 12 2018